


Drugs, Deceptions, and Debts

by completelyhopeless



Series: Detective Grayson and Forensic Batgirl [12]
Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Case Fic, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3190322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barbara looks into the evidence and figures out more about their witness than he likes. Dick gets a piece of things back, and Bruce is almost comforting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drugs, Deceptions, and Debts

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do another piece of this, though honestly, the second to last part surprised me because I didn't want to get into what happened when Dick got himself captured. It just kind of came out as I was sitting here dealing with this headache that will not quit, and I said, "screw headache, don't care if the electronics might be making it worse, I'm writing this down."
> 
> So, here is more, with some answers, but also without. I can't believe I got two series updates done today. This seems insane.

* * *

Hearing a groan of pain that Dick didn't manage to suppress, Barbara grimaced, taking off her glasses and turning back from her equipment to catch him before he could knock everything off her counter. “You should have stayed at the shelter.”

“Nothing to do there but stare at the walls, and that really wouldn't have helped,” Dick said. He drew in a breath and let it out again with a slight hiss. “I'm fine. Just got a bit dizzy for a second.”

“You should be resting.”

“Right now, all I'd see if I closed my eyes was me killing my own parents. No.” He pushed her back gently, standing on his own. “I came with you because I need to be doing something. You could at least let me look at the code even if you won't let me see any of the evidence from my parents' case.”

She looked at him. “How much does it bother you that I requested the evidence from your parents' case before I spoke to you about it?”

He shook his head. “I honestly don't know. There's a part of me that's convinced you did it so you can prove it was me, that you were going to do that before you told me about it. There's another part of me that wants to be practical and remember that I was out cold when you took the kid to Bruce and started working the evidence and that it made sense no matter what you thought my guilt or innocence to get the box brought over then and not wait until I was awake again. And there's another part of me that's kind of flattered by the idea that maybe you would have gone through all the steps and proved that I didn't do it before you told me because you wanted to have that for me because I'm your friend and you care and...”

“And you're a bit winded again,” she said, smiling. “Come on, Stubborn Wonder. Let's at least get you into a chair.”

He nodded, but two steps later, he stopped, not letting her get him to the chair. “If I do something right now, can I blame it on the trauma and the injuries and how messed up Maroni made my head by that accusation?”

“What?”

He leaned close, and she wasn't sure if he was going to whisper something stupid in her ear or even dare to kiss her, but someone coughed, pointedly, and Dick cursed in her ear instead, moving away the instant he saw his former guardian. She had to force herself to remain polite. She didn't really want Dick kissing her—he was a mess right now and she was his anchor, something she'd never intended to be and it would just confuse things if he went too far in leaning on her.

“You shouldn't be on your feet.”

“You shouldn't be here at all, Bruce, so I think we're even,” Dick said, and she knew he wasn't going to sit down now, not with Bruce watching him. He wouldn't show a weakness now even though he needed to admit he was hurt and rest.

“You weren't at the shelter.” Bruce pulled the kid forward by his shirt. “And this one remains uncooperative. I assumed with you awake you could talk to him again.”

“Let go of me, you pathetic drunk,” the kid said, tugging on Bruce's arm. “You are unfit to touch me, spineless and ineffectual as you are.”

Dick smiled. “I'd watch it if I were you. Jason and I have a running bet that he's your father.”

Bruce almost dropped the kid in horror, and the assassin went pale. “Impossible.”

Dick looked at her. “I don't know. You think they sound anything alike? I kind of heard it there when they both said impossible at the same time.”

“I can do a test,” Barbara offered, mentally chastising herself for getting involved in one of Dick's jokes. The idea wasn't that funny, not if it was true, though Bruce and the boy's reactions had been rather priceless. She'd have to get the surveillance footage later.

“Don't.” _You dare_ was the rest of Bruce's sentence, unspoken but still echoing in the room.

“He could make it all go away by telling us who he is,” Dick said, grinning at the kid. “Let's start with a name before we start calling you Bruce Junior.”

“You will never give me such a ridiculous appellation, Grayson,” the boy said haughtily. “I am Damian al Ghul.”

Dick blinked. Barbara reached out to touch his arm, and whatever joke he might have made was lost when he turned to her with a frown—or a grimace of pain. She wasn't sure.

“There are reason you couldn't have said that before?”

“You hadn't earned the knowledge then. Your continued survival is somewhat...”

“Impressive?” Barbara finished, because she was starting to think it was a wonder that Dick had survived as long as he had.

“I think he was going for amusing,” Dick said with a self-depreciating smile. “Which is not that far from the truth.”

“You should sit down before you fall down.”

“Pot, kettle,” Dick muttered, ignoring Bruce's advice. Barbara had a feeling that a younger Dick had said much the same to Bruce in the past and been brushed off just as easily. “Babs, can I have the code now? Since Damian's not interested in talking, I can work on it instead.”

“Dick—”

“Kid's not half bad with puzzles. He's been stealing the ones from the paper since he was nine.”

“Ten,” Dick corrected. “I was ten by the time I ended up with you. I was nine when they died, but ten by the time...”

Barbara frowned. “Dick?”

“Before you even start to think it, no,” Bruce said, leaving the kid for a moment as he crossed to Dick's side. He put his hands on Dick's shoulders. “Look at me. Listen to me. You are not responsible for what happened to your aunt. Don't go down that path. She chose the wrong man. He almost killed you, but you were with Alfred when she died. It was not and could not have been you. Just like your parents dying was not you.”

Dick shook his head. “We don't know that. All I have ever remembered is them being on the floor, dead, and I can hear Maroni talking to me, and he always implied that he did it, but he never said he did, and he wanted me to throw the knives like I knew how to because of the circus and—”

“Maroni was a sick monster who corrupted children. He was trying to break you, Dick, and he's still trying to do it now,” Bruce said. “You never let him before. Don't let him now.”

“Bruce, if I killed them—”

“You _didn't,”_ Barbara said, ignoring Damian's scornful hiss. “I've barely started on the evidence, and I don't need it, but since you do—the entry points of the wounds and the blood splatter is wrong for it having been you. Everything I see here suggests that the act was done by someone taller than both of your parents. The angle of the cuts, the force of the blows—I'm not a forensic anthropologist, but I know one and she can confirm this—the damage was not done by the knives being thrown or by someone your size. The blade went in at a downward angle, not upward, and you would have been too young to mange that angle.”

Dick closed his eyes, letting out a breath. Bruce chose that moment, of all of them, to let him go, and Barbara shook her head at his stupidity as she moved back to accept Dick's embrace. “Babs...”

“I know,” she said quietly. “Just take a minute. I'll finish going through the rest later, make an absolute case for this being Maroni and not you. And I want you to rest.”

Dick snorted against her shoulder. “Unlikely, but... thank you.”

* * *

“You lied to him.”

“Excuse me?” Barbara demanded, turning to face Damian. She didn't trust this kid, wasn't sure what to do with him. She almost regretted letting Bruce take Dick into her office so he could lie down on her couch and rest.

“You lied to Grayson. You could not have processed that evidence so quickly. You lied to pacify him. It does not change the facts.” Damian sounded far too smug for a child his age as he continued, “you took the only piece of evidence that he could not contradict you on because it could be assumed from a cursory examination and not extensive testing and used it to keep him calm.”

Barbara folded her arms over her chest. “Why would you trust Maroni's word over mine? Isn't he playing the same game with you? Twisting you into a killer and taking away your childhood? Why would you believe his lies?”

Damian snorted. “Maroni insists that Grayson has value to the organization, has since he killed his parents and showed his promise as what they needed. He is a fool to think so—Grayson has some skill but lacks the mental focus he needs. He is too focused on some archaic idea of morality.”

“There is _nothing_ archaic about morality,” Barbara said. She shook her head. “You might have been raised without a sense of right and wrong. You might have been told that killing is fine, that it's nothing, but it's a life. And life matters. If Dick didn't believe that, you'd be dead.”

“At Grayson's hands? I think not.”

“At Jason's.” Barbara smiled viciously, noticing the boy react to her words. He might not think that Jason was much of a threat, but he did acknowledge him as one, if only a little. “Jason spared your life because that's what Dick wanted. Not what he wanted. Not what Maroni made him into. Now why don't you drop the attitude and tell us exactly who is behind teaching these kids to kill?”

“You think I would go against them? Why?”

“Dick,” Barbara said, not hedging her bets. She had noticed it before, all of them had, that Damian only really spoke to Dick. He answered Dick's questions, not Bruce's or Jason's. She wasn't even sure why the boy was talking to her now. “You want him to be his parents' killer because it's something you can respect in him in some twisted way, not because you believe Maroni. Something Dick said or did got to you, and you don't want to admit that someone so 'weak' in your opinion got through to you, but he did.”

“You are a foolish woman.”

“Actually, she's pretty damn smart.”

Barbara smiled slightly at Bruce's words. She had to admit, the man had his moments.

“Grayson is nothing.”

“Then why, expert assassin that you supposedly are, tough and perfect and not needing anyone—haven't you escaped from us yet? You've had plenty of chances, and yet you haven't,” she said, knowing they had him. “It is for Dick. What happened between the two of you that made such a big impression on you?”

“It is not an impression.”

“It's a blood debt,” Bruce said. “Dick saved your life. Now you owe him. Your honor demands it, but you think he's unworthy of it, don't you?”

The boy glared at them both and said nothing.

* * *

_The clarity of how easily he was tricked was something hard to accept, but he knew it wasn't a lie. He'd been played, and it was stupid of him, but even with that unpleasant warning in his gut, he'd done what a cop_ should _do, what any decent human being should do._

_He'd tried to help._

_Dick had been on the roof when he heard the cry for help, and he knew, with that old familiar kick to the gut, that it was Maroni. His kid. The killer he was training. They were out with another victim, and Dick needed to stop them._

_He frowned. Was it only half an hour ago that he was eating with Selina, listening to her laughter like a purr as she told him of her exploits in Paris? He found it hard to remember, but he knew that he hadn't been drinking. He'd slept, earlier, though it had been hours since he got back from Jason's, but still, he was fine._

_His ribs said otherwise, but it was his head that was bothering him, this sense of something missing, something wrong, some piece that was already gone like—_

_Like his parents. Like the time that had disappeared around then. Like when Maroni had him._

_Dick gagged._

_He didn't believe Selina had anything to do with this. She was a lot of things, but she didn't approve of people hurting kids. She took them in and called them kitten—or she tried to. She'd threatened to steal him from Bruce more than once. She wouldn't do this to him._

_Then how?_

_He almost laughed when he thought of it. Simple. Brilliant. Horrible. Just like Maroni. The air freshener in the car. Now that Dick thought about it, it had smelled a bit off, but the car was a junk heap and he lived in it sometimes, so it was a mess and full of all kinds of smells—he would never let Babs in his car without detailing it first, and even then, she'd probably still refuse—but if the drug was in his system already because of the car—_

_“Hello, Robin. I've missed you.”_

_He was disoriented and dizzy and that wasn't a prostitute the kid was about to kill but another kid and how had he gotten so close to this mess without realizing it?_

_“I'm not Robin,” Dick said, trying to remember getting down to the street level and then telling himself it wasn't important. “Let the kid go.”_

_“Much as it amuses me that you think I'd listen, I can't. That one needs to die before he can go telling anyone what he saw of my operation here.”_

_“Your operation?” Dick put a hand against the brick of the building next to him, steadying himself. “Of course. The prostitutes, you using your own vehicle—you're in trouble, aren't you, Maroni? You crossed your employers, didn't you?”_

_“Their mistake was sending the kid to check on me. I was going to use the new one, but I think it's time I introduced them to my greatest success, don't you think?”_

_“I am not your biggest success. Try your biggest failure,” Dick said. He looked at the boy with the sword. He was what, ten? And then this one over here—fifteen? Older than what Maroni usually worked with, but that one was one of his successes. The eyes were dead, and the smile was unhinged enough for Dick to know this one_ liked _killing. He had enjoyed every bit of pain he'd caused those women, and he wasn't going to stop. Maroni would lose control of him if he hadn't already._

_“Doesn't matter if you're dead,” the older boy said while the younger one made a strange noise, lifting the sword, ready to fight._

_Dick hadn't forgotten any of Maroni's tricks, though he doubted either of the kids knew about them. He looked at Maroni and back at the little swordsman. “What did you give him?”_

_“He didn't give me anything.”_

_“Kid, you were drugged the moment you came in contact with him. The only question is if it's one of his nice mindbenders or a poison. With you, I'm betting poison. I got the mindbender, but what he likes to forget is that I'm kind of used to it by now.”_

_“What?”_

_Punching Maroni had never been so satisfying, for all the three seconds that feeling lasted before the real fight began._

* * *

“Dick?”

He swallowed, feeling a bit queasy. He reached up to touch his head. “Did I throw anything this time? Break anything?”

“No,” Barbara said, coming over to the couch. “You did yell, maybe even scream, which kind of freaked everyone out, including the kid who supposedly doesn't care about you.”

“Maroni was going to kill him.”

“What?”

Dick shook his head. “I can't remember all of it. I got a piece back, but I don't think it's enough.”

She touched his shoulder. “Stop punishing yourself. You didn't kill your parents and you just might work miracles, even if you don't remember them.”

It was his turn to be confused. Again. “What?”

“Apparently, that kid owes you some kind of blood debt. You saved his life.”

“And now I'm stuck with him? Great.”


End file.
